Almost every episode of Mythbusters has something that goes "boom". That's because they have an "in" with local and federal cops, and access to stuff that would put the average American or Californian in jail.
Some of their stuff is amazingly good, like their Civil War hybrid/solid fuel rocket. The launch was jaw-dropping, looking like a cruise missile launch.
Other things are dumb, or just obvious. Stuff involving firearms always gives me a chance to yell at the TV.
Still, it's an entertaining exercise in testing-to-excess on a big budget. Of course, for entertainment purposes they often trip themselves up with scaling factors. A few 15-minute segments were on things so simple, I could write out the math on the back of an envelope in five minutes. But that wouldn't be nearly as entertaining for most folks, although I appreciated the mathematical exercise.
And yes, they made a lead balloon, and it (sort of) flew.
I had NEVER heard of Mythbusters until just a few years ago! We don’t have T.V. and don’t have cable. Actually, we do “sort of” get a couple of T.V. channels. But I’m not paying for cable. I already pay the phone and Internet bill (everything else around here for that matter!) and I told the youngsters that if they wanted cable, THEY could pay for it! So far, they haven’t wanted it bad enough. :-) But we like Mythbusters...and you’re right...something almost always goes *boom*. :-) I’ve been downloading Mythbusters via bit-torrent on the net. :-)